On Cloud Nine
by SuckMyPeetato
Summary: Peeta's life in District 12 is Hell on earth. He is drowning in the pain and the loneliness, so he decides to take his last chance to escape it all. However, when he meets Cato, everything changes. (Summary sucks. It's not really AU. Still takes place in 74th Hunger Games, but I have changed a lot of things. Just give it a shot. You know you want to! PEETATO SLASH BTW)


**Hey, guys. So, yeah. As you can see, I have pretty much given up entirely on my Twilight fic. I tell myself I'll finish it, but it's never going to happen. Sorry.**

**Buuuuut on the bright side, I finally got around to starting this little beauty! Wahoo!**

**SO, BASICALLY, this fic is going to be very gay and slashy. You don't like it, don't read. No fair bitching and complaining to me because I did warn you. Let me establish now that this is the only time I am going to post a warning at the start of a chapter. There will eventually at some point in this fic be foul language, violence, character death, Peetato (Peeta/Cato) slash, gay sexy times, and other various mature themes. If you can't handle that, DON'T READ IT.**

**I will not mark off the graphic or pornographic parts of the fic like some authors do simply because I don't want to encourage people to skip part of my story. If you don't like the sex, then don't read the story. I put it in there for a reason. It's part of the plotline, so I'm not making it removable.**

**And as for disclaimers, you guys know this stuff doesn't belong to me. It's fanfiction, so obviously, the fandom was not created by me. The only thing I own is this twist on the life of Suzanne Collins' characters within the universe she created. That is my disclaimer for the whole story. I'm not posting anymore of them.**

**Okay, now that that's done, please read and review!**

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Numb. That's how he felt. Numb. Peeta could no longer feel the sting of the rolling pin as his mother mercilessly whacked it across his body.

There was no point resisting because It would only prolong the misery. He simply lay there on the kitchen floor, his body limp and motionless, submitting to the cruel torture. His face held no expression as he stared blankly at the ceiling above him. He imagined that he was someone else, watching this happen from an outside perspective. He wasn't Peeta Mellark, but rather, he was a nameless, faceless, outside observer watching Peeta Mellark get beaten to a pulp by his own mother.

Poor boy.

Sure, he wasn't actually some third party onlooker. In reality, Peeta knew that, but it was easier to cope with his terrible life if he denied and repressed the present. It was the only way to keep himself from going completely and utterly insane.

He was so focused on keeping his mind out-of-body that by the time his mother stormed off to take her bath and prepare for bed, he did not have the slightest inkling as to how much time had passed since he was first thrown to the floor. All he knew was that if he didn't get up quickly, his older brother, Rhye, would soon com to finish the job, being sure to beat Peeta until he lost consciousness, and then some.

This happened every day. Every. Single. Day.

The worst part was never the beating itself; it was afterward, when he had to come back down to reality and feel the pain his mother had caused. However, he had to face the pain to avoid more. There was really no choice in the matter. He bit his lower lip as he used what little energy he had in him to push himself up into a sitting position.

His breathing became very shallow as he felt every muscle, bone, joint, and ligament light up in white-hot pain. It was as if every part of his body was submerged in boiling water. It was agony.

Silently, with all the strength he could muster, Peeta lifted himself up onto two feet and dragged himself up two flights of stairs to his bedroom, otherwise known as the attic. He flung himself onto the old, lumpy mattress he called a bed.

He looked around his room and contemplated his sad excuse for a life.

The windowless attic was small, dark, and dank, bare of any redeeming qualities. The room was barely big enough to hold his "bed" and an old trunk that held his few pairs of clothing. The unpainted walls were coated in a thick layer of dust, but Peeta preferred it that way. It helped to mask the odor of the moldy, rotting wood underneath. There was no lighting in the room. Granted, District 12 rarely had any power, which was a bit ironic considering their coal was used to supply power to all of Panem. Still, you would think his mother could spare one oil lamp for him.

Nope. Not a chance with that horrid woman. All she would give him was one candle a month, and he had to make it last or he'd be living in the dark.

When Peeta was a little boy, he had no idea why his mother and Rhye hated him as they did. As he grew older, he began to listen to town gossip, and eventually, he had been able to put the pieces together: in their eyes, Peeta was the reason for his father's death.

On the day Peeta was born, by some sort of cruel, sick joke of nature, his father fell to the ground on the floor of the bakery kitchen. He had been handling the business while Rhye helped his mother through the birthing process. In District twelve, they simply could not afford to close the bakery for a day—working full time barely brought in enough money to provide for three people, let alone a new baby. They didn't often get more than one or two customers a day, and some days, they would not get any at all. Because of all this, nobody had been around to help him when he collapsed, and by the time Rhye had discovered him sprawled across the floor later that night, it was already too late. They never did know exactly what it was that killed Mr. Mellark, but it didn't matter. Rhye and his mother would always see Peeta's birth as the cause. Every time they looked at him, all they saw was a reminder of the tragedy that took place on that day.

Peeta got used to the beatings as a part of everyday life, but the one thing he never got used to was the loneliness he felt, both at home and at school. He was always alone. He knew how his mother felt about him having friends. He heard that message loud and clear years ago when he brought home his friend from school, Katniss Everdeen, one day. After forcing Katniss out of the house, Mrs. Mellark beat Peeta harder than ever before. It was the first time she ever decided to use a rolling pin instead of her bare hands, and she had maintained the change in weaponry ever since. He had only been five years old at the time.

Nobody knew what Peeta went through because he wasn't stupid enough to tell them. As long as he kept quiet, no one would ever suspect a thing, for his mother was no idiot—she always was careful to ensure Peeta's wounds were not visible to the general public, always hidden beneath his clothes. Besides, who would he tell? The Peacekeepers couldn't care less about the wellbeing of District 12 citizens, and if he told anyone else, it wasn't like there was anything they could do to help him. On top of that, if he did say something, people would gossip, and sooner or later, his mother would surely hear about it and beat him senseless for talking poorly about her. No, it was definitely best for everyone that he always kept to himself.

"Ah—" Peeta hissed sharply as he shifted his weight to reach for the small candle and pack of matches sitting atop the trunk next to his bed. With shaky hands, he took one match and swiped across the worn strike strip on the side of the box. For a mere fraction of a second, Peeta marveled at the light as it danced on the head of the match, the small flame bringing some semblance of life into the darkness. Before the flame had time to run out, Peeta used it to light the tiny wick poking out of the bare remnants of overused wax that once made up a full-sized candle. As quickly as his worn-out body would allow, Peeta grabbed the small notebook and pencil sitting next to the matchbox. Under the dim light of the tiny flame, he flipped his journal open to the current page and on the first blank line, he scribbled his note for the day:

"_**4/27:**__I'm going to do it._"

Then, like clockwork, just as Peeta finished writing, the small wick burned out. The room went dark as the flame faded into blackness.

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**Yay! Prologue complete! Please review guys. It seriously means a lot to me, and the reviews keep me motivated to keep writing. It takes a lot of time an effort to write a chapter, but it only takes seconds to review.**

**Also, I do not know how often I will post new chapters. Hopefully I can manage to update on a regular basis, but I'm not making any promises I can't keep. Thanks for reading!**


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